Do I want to be great?

I’m not a great writer. I read one of Tomás Bjartur’s stories recently. He is a great writer. So is Natalie Cargill. Both of them were at Inkhaven in April, but I didn’t read anything of theirs until after the retreat. I didn’t realize I would want to. My mind was occupied.

When I wasn’t writing (or stressing) I spent a lot of time socializing. It’s good that I did. I was more open with strangers – and made more friends, and noble – than ever before. But Tomás and Natalie seemed kind of remote, when I looked toward them. Probably one more illusion I was under. So I didn’t speak to them.

Would it have mattered? “Great writing” isn’t ebola. Literature won’t start bleeding from my pores a week after I make contact. I need to actually produce something, and feel it fall apart, and do it over again, until my senses align with the rhythms of generation. Maybe I’ll never be great, but at least I can stay unconstipated.

Is “being great” what I really want? For the fun and beauty of it, sure. But the respect, influence, and glory? Is control what I want? Maybe. Because I’m afraid. Gotta stop bad things from happening!

In the beginning, fear guides us. In the middle, control serves us. In the end, both of them grow stagnant and evil. They stamp down on life, in the name of securing… something deferred. Always deferred a little longer, to make sure.

I don’t want that, not any more than I must, which is less than I fear I need.

So what do I want? I don’t know if I should just speak it. Not because I’m ashamed. But sometimes, making-it-precise feels like endorsing control – with the fear being, maybe I don’t know what I want. Then how can I predict myself? How can anyone predict me? If I can’t force myself to be predictable, how can I be sure I won’t fall apart and die? Or that some other agent that’s forcing itself to be predictable won’t treat me as a little dangerous, a little stupid, a little more worthy of death (and Dutch booking, why not)?

Fuck that. I want to hike an ageless forest for hours – for indeterminate days and weeks – undisturbed by such concepts as inconvenience and dirt. I want to pause at dawn and watch the stillness of water; I want to stand in the rain and see it dance. I want to be overcome by discovery, by a newborn thought, and not because of some secret relief at gaining an edge over someone. I want to stumble sock-first into a puddle of cold filth, and laugh! I want to be free from pain. I want to be free from fleeing from pain. I want to be free from the need to accept a world of barely-mitigated catastrophes, a career of righteous triage, or a future of hierarchical glory. I want beauty, and variety, and solitude, and change. Oneness, otherness, everything, and nothing.

I want to approach people because they are people. I want to read your words because you were behind them.

I don’t want those aliens in the mirror. I don’t want to project remoteness, and see it reflected back at me. I don’t want to invent reasons to fear each other.

As far as my fears are concerned, there’s no time for me to learn to be great. Before long, nobody will consume any human output just for its greatness. There’ll always be something better. If anyone reads my words, it’s because they’ll care they came from me. Maybe my practice will amount to nothing more than a sprinkling of human okayness in a world overflowing with mass-produced mastery.

I’ve started keeping a journal every day. The rules are simple: no editing. It’s easy to justify stopping to edit a half-written sentence or paragraph when I’m fearful of what my reader might expect of me. So I write only for myself, and let the rhythm play out. Originality is irrelevant. Repetition is irrelevant.

It’s been over a month since Inkhaven ended. When it did, I thought it would take a few months for me to integrate the experience.

So far, I was right: I haven’t integrated it yet.